Memories of Home
by Roseth Helcie
Summary: The Doctor tells Rose about his life on Gallifrey. Ten/Rose, oneshot.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Doctor Who or anything you recognize. Which will be most of it. But the scenario is mine!

**A/N: **Hey, y'all! This is my first fanfic, so please don't sue me if I got something wrong! But anyway, I am really excited and proud of this fanfic, so I hope you love it to! Please R&R if you have the time, and constructive criticism is very much appreciated. :)

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The Doctor glanced up from the console and set his gaze upon Rose. His beautiful, caring, human. His Rose.

Her hair was all disheveled and she was still dressed in her nightie, as she had just woken up from her 9-hour sleep. With a yawn and a quick rub of the eyes, she met the Doctor's glance and smiled.

"So what've you been up to tonight, Doctor?" She asked, giggling. His hair was even crazier than usual and he had a huge blotch of - what was it? Charcoal? Oil? - on his face, smeared right in the center of his left cheek. She silently wondered if he'd even noticed. Did he ever look in the mirror, anyway? Or was that all just a human thing?

"Oh, this and that." He replied, running around to the other side of the console and pulling a lever. "Mostly just repair work."

"Really, what for?"

"She's getting old Rose." He answered sadly, placing his right hand on the TARDIS console.

"What, older than you?"

"Yeah, actually. Far older than me." He quickly glanced around his ship before returning his gaze to the console. "Thousands of years older. She was already a museum piece when I was a child. A long, long time ago."

Rose watched the Doctor as he retreated back into himself, reminiscing. He seemed to do it quite often... reminiscing about old friends long gone, lost moments, his childhood. She could never be quite sure with the Doctor... he was always so careful about revealing his past. She knew he was 900 years old, and that he came from an extinct species known as Time Lords, and that he could "regenerate" his body when he was about to die, but that was about it. What was his childhood like? Did he have a family? What was his planet called? How many other people had he picked up on his travels? What was his name? So many questions, but never any answers.

After a lengthy pause wherein the Doctor reminisced and Rose wondered, she finally broke the awkward silence.

"Doctor?" she asked. He broke out of his trance and became energetic all of a sudden.

"So!" he shouted exuberantly in his normal manner, "Where do you want to go to next? Actually, there is this one little place that I know of... just a nice, peaceful place where we can relax. That would be brilliant, wouldn't it? Just someplace quiet and trouble-free where we can finally get some fresh air. Blimey, I haven't been to the Eye Of Orion in ages..."

He trailed off and started to pull levers and wiggle some strange switches, his mind obviously set on where they would go already. Rose sighed.

"Yes, someplace relaxing sounds nice, but actually... Well, I was thinking... And we've never really... You know..." She stuttered, trying to find the right set of words. "I was just thinking, if maybe you could... you know... Tell me about you."

The Doctor quieted down and looked at Rose with confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know... what planet are you from?"

He stopped rushing about and placed his hands in his pockets. A long silence happened after that, and Rose began to wonder if he was ever going to talk again at all.

"Oh." He said simply. He lowered his eyes, and suddenly began to take a remarkable interest in his shoes. '_Have they always been this dirty?'_ He wondered to himself.

"Doctor?"

The Doctor inhaled deeply and fiddled with the scanner a bit.

"Is it important?"

"Well, I guess it isn't really, but... it's _you_. And I know you don't like to talk about it, but you never say anything about you anymore. I know you are a Time Lord, last of them, and that you are over 900 years old, but that's about it. I've told you nearly everything about me... I would just sort of like it if... I knew you that way, too."

"Gallifrey." He answered quietly, looking her in the eye. "It was called Gallifrey."

"Your planet?"

"Yes."

His mind ran wild with images of his planet, his home. The beautiful red grass, the silver trees, the twin suns, Mount Perdition. And then he remembered it all burning. His home, his friends, his family. Burning. Dying. And he just stood by and watched. Worse than that, he had made it happen. It was all gone now, and it was his fault, all his fault. Not the Master's, not the Rani's, not Rassilon's. _His_.

A single tear fell from his eye and rolled down his cheek.

"Sounds beautiful." Rose said quietly, noticing his distress.

"It was. Oh, you should have seen that old planet! It was beautiful, so beautiful. So many memories, so many lives, so much history. But it's gone now. And it's all my fault."

"Oh Doctor, it's not your fault!" Rose said as she walked up to the distraught Doctor, placing her hand on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him.

"But it is, Rose. All of it. All those lives. I just stood by and watched it happen. Watched as my planet burned. But, no, it was worse than that. I wasn't just a coward. It was all me. I made it burn. All those screams, Rose, etched in my mind forever. When I close my eyes, that is what I see. Death and destruction."

The Doctor could not say any more. Rose led him to the chair nearby and sat him down, just before he broke down and began to cry. He normally hated appearing so weak, especially in front of Rose. But for some reason, just this time, he felt okay about it.

Rose brought him into a friendly embrace, and for a long while, they just talked. The Doctor eventually calmed down as he began to tell Rose about his childhood, his life at the Academy, his family, his friends, his home. For the first time in a hundred years, he was truly happy and at peace. And, better than that, he had Rose. He would never let her go. Ever.

"How about we visit your mum, instead?" The Doctor asked a few hours later. After that little talk, he had once again realized just how much his family had used to mean to him. Also, it had been months since Rose had last seen her mum.

"That sounds nice." Rose agreed. "Actually, I still have that Bazulium weather detector that I wanted to give her next time we met."

"Alright then!" The Doctor grinned, running up to the TARDIS console and tinkering with the various controls. "Next stop: home."


End file.
